


Five Little Ducks

by MissyMallow



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, Post-Hogwarts, Post-War, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Single Parent Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22763362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissyMallow/pseuds/MissyMallow
Summary: Draco didn't know a simple gesture of calming a wailing child would lead to something unexpected.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 261





	Five Little Ducks

Draco groans out loud. It's probably been over a few minutes now and he can still hear the sound of a baby crying their heart out. He tries to tune it out, hoping that if he stares at his documents hard enough, the sound would probably diminished.

It doesn't.

Instead, it gets worse as the baby's voice sounds harsher than before, wailing as loud as they can.

Draco put his head between his hands, resisting so hard not to grab his hair out of frustration. He looks down at his documents desperately, and tries to find a glimpse of concentration that he can pull in order to continue his work.

There's none.

His attention slowly diverts back to the sound of the baby, still whining and bawling their little heart out, their small high pitch voice resonates throughout the space.

Draco can't take it anymore.

He abruptly stands up - sending his chair toppled to the floor - and round up his desk as he walks purposely straight out of his office.

He follows the sound of the baby, and feels his heart squeezed painfully when he sees them in the arms of a stressful witch, surrounded by a few wizards and witches who probably tried to calm the baby down themselves and failed.

The baby's face was already red, fat tears running through his small face as they kept twisting their body around, trying to escape from the witch’s hold.

Draco waste no time as he quickly approaches the scene when one of the witches turns and cries out in relief when she sees him. “Mr. Malfoy!”

Draco was surprised to see that she was actually one of his employees, which made things easier as he quickly asked. "Ms. Bloom! What happened?”

“He won't stop crying!” She gestures. “We tried everything, but he won't budge!”

“Where's his parents?”

“His father was in an important meeting, and that witch was his babysitter but as you can see, he doesn't do well with her.”

Draco frowns, unconsciously walks closer to the wailing baby, placing a soft touch to the baby's back. He looks at the witch who warily stares at him in confusion and he smiles at her reassuringly despite the baby's loud cries. “May I try?”

Her stares were full of distrust, perhaps it's because he's Draco Malfoy - former Death Eater - but he kept his smile steady.

The witch sighs eventually as her eyes turn thankful. She smiled apologetically at Draco as she carefully hands the baby over to Draco. “Yes, please. Thank you.”

Draco immediately fastened the baby securely in his arms, making sure he was in a comfortable position as he softly wipes the baby's tears away, and placed a soft kiss on his head. “Don't cry, love. I'm here now.”

He softly patted the baby's back, lightly bouncing him up and down in his arms as he brings the baby walks around the place. The baby was hiccuping in between his cries now, mouth open wide as he trash around in Draco’s arms.

Draco tries to whisper loving words to the infant but to no avail, he won't stop his cries.

Draco sighed, almost desperate that he couldn't be of help to calm the baby down when a song deep in his unconscious mind involuntarily stumbled out of his mouth.

“Five little ducks went out one day, over the hill and far away.” He gently moves the baby in rocking motion, rubbing his back and continues to sing. “Mother duck said quack, quack, quack, quack. But only four little ducks came back.”

To his great surprise, the baby slows down, sobbing as he takes a broken breath in between calming down his cries. Draco’s heart swells when the baby drops his head on his shoulder, burying his face onto his neck and fist his collar with his miniature hand.

Draco continues to sing, counting down the ducks and restarts when the song ended. He rocks and bounce the baby gently as he whimpers, and soon all Draco hears was silence.

He caresses the small nest of a black hair, quite sure with himself that the baby has fallen asleep. “You poor little thing, cried yourself to sleep, aren't you?”

The small fist on his collar loosen their grip, conforming Draco that the little wee has totally knocked out, and Draco softly chuckles, amused.

Now that the situation has settled down, it dawned on Draco that he has never even taken care of a baby in his entire life before, let alone held a baby. He didn't know what possessed him to go and try to console the baby - he can't even believe he's holding a baby now. This would be his first time, and now that the baby has fallen asleep, he had no idea how he managed to carry the baby in his arms without dropping him.

He was quite proud of himself.

He continues to rock the baby gently in his arms, softly sings the nursery rhyme - now that he manages to recall - that was sung to him when he was a child himself.

He casts a Feather-Light Charm on the baby when his arms start to get stiff, singing softly, mostly to himself when a voice calls his name.

“Malfoy?”

Draco slowly turns only to see a person that he hasn't seen for almost a decade since after the war. He silently regards the other man, not sure with himself if he was truly him seeing that he looks different from the last time Draco saw him.

To say that he was stunned by the sudden change of situation was an understatement.

“Draco Malfoy?” The man says with hesitancy, as if he can't believe that he's standing in front of his old archenemy.

Draco unconsciously swallows.

“Harry Potter.” He greets.

They stared at each other for a good moment before Potter slowly approached him, and Draco unconsciously stood up straighter, his grip on the baby tightens.

Potter stops right in front of him, standing awkwardly as he eyes the baby in Draco’s arms and scratches his head.

“Uh, thank you for taking care of James for me.”

Draco blinks.

“He's yours?”

“Yes.” Potter nods, and stiffly smiles. “He's my son, uh, James.”

“Oh.” Draco says, and nothing else. Not that he got anything else to say, knowing that the baby - James - in his arms was actually Potter's son managed to make him tongue tied.

“Uhm, yea.”

“Cool.” Draco says, and honestly he doesn't know what to do, should he perhaps congratulate Potter for having a son? He doesn't even know that Potter's married. It's been a long time since he read the papers, and he stayed away from gossip as much as he could. Plus, he has been focusing on redeeming himself to put his attention elsewhere.

“So, uh, I'm actually done with my meeting and we should probably head back now…” Potter trailed off, gesturing to his son who's sleeping soundly in Draco’s arms.

“Oh, yes!” Draco nods, canceling the charms he put on James and moves closer to Potter who gently peel his son off Draco.

He feels a great amount of emptiness once Potter has his son back in his arms, so he covers it up by stiffly straightening his clothes, felt it was a bit damp from where he had held James earlier.

“Thank you, Malfoy.” Potter says and Draco looks up to meet his sincere gaze. He returned them with a small smile. “My pleasure, Potter.”

They held their gaze on each other for a moment, and it was Draco who averted his eyes first, dragging them to James who continued to sleep soundly in his father's arm. He can't help but give soft chuckles. “He's a beautiful child.”

“Indeed he is.” Potter says, caressing the small boy's head as he regards Draco once again. “I should probably head back now.”

“Of course.” Draco stepped back, allowing Potter to move and walk away from Draco. He stops to look over his shoulder when he was about to disappear from Draco’s eyesight, a thankful smile drawn upon his face which Draco replies with a smile of his own and an awkward wave. With a polite nod, Potter continues his journey, disappearing from Draco line of sight and probably away from his life too.

He probably won't see Potter again, the chance for them to be in each other's company are too slim and it's not like they were in the same social circle. He was a former Death Eater for Salazar’s sake.

He gives himself a few moments to collect himself before he walks back towards his office, blinking in confusion when his table was full of stack of papers. He reaches for one of them, raising his brows to see it was an article from the Prophet, an article of Potter to be exact. He turns his gaze on the rest of the papers, skimming them briefly to see it was all about Potter.

He took his seat with a confused mind, eyes trained on the piece of paper in his hand as he read the content carefully. Draco read the content twice, thrice and locked his eyes at one particular sentence again and again.

**_“Harry Potter, Saviour of the Wizarding World has decided to adopt a son.”_ **

Adopt a son.

Merlin.

Draco slowly put the article on his table, and runs his fingers through his hair. He's not even sure if Potter was the one who put the stack of papers in his office, it might be someone else's doing.

Even if it was actually Potter, what exactly was his agenda by sending all the articles?

Is this Potter's way of telling him that he's actually single and not married?

Draco didn't dare to give any assumption.

He decided to put the matters away - it's not that important anyway, and focus on his work. But he knows he's lying to himself when his eyes keep diverted back to the stack of articles.

He curses when his hand reaches for the offensive papers, pushing away his work - not that he can do anything to it when his mind was elsewhere - and starts reading them one by one. By the time he's done, he knows that Potter has been a single man since the last five years, he adopted James since he was still a newborn, he has opened a Defensive Class for two years already, he knows that Potter sometimes went to Hogwarts for the same said class and he also knows that Potter has come out as Bisexual, and there's even one or two articles that showed him in various dates with some witches or wizards.

A sudden tap on his office's window grabs his attention, he moves to peer at his window to see a small unfamiliar owl, blinking their eyes at him. Draco takes the small rolled letter tied on the owl’s leg once he let the small bird in, and opens the letter with mild curiosity, only to gasps when he reads the content.

Honestly, he'd never imagine the turn of the event would lead to something like this. Before he knows it, a smile blooms upon his face and he quickly searches for his parchment to write a quick reply, rolls them neatly and ties them on the small owl’s leg before the bird gracefully flies away.

Draco watches until the bird disappears from his view, and he just had to chuckles. If he got to be honest with himself, he doesn't know if it will lead them anywhere, but he's willing to find out.

-

_Dear, Malfoy_

_Fancy a drink? You might already know much about me, but I want to know about yours._  
_p/s: I hope you had fun reading those articles._

_Sincerely,_

_HP_

_*_

_Dear, Potter_

_Yes, it would be my pleasure._  
_p/s: And yes, they're interesting, I had fun._

_Sincerely,_

_D.L.M_

**Author's Note:**

> See me on tumblr: missymallow


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